


call me lily

by floatingflowers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chance Meetings, Cokeworth, Drabble, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Gen, Injuried Lily Evans (minor), James learns about Lily, overprotective james potter, she bumps her head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27092521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floatingflowers/pseuds/floatingflowers
Summary: Lily opened her eyes which she had closed after promptly smacking her head into the shelf and there he was. James fucking Potter, the most un-muggle-like wizard, in the most mundane muggle place.orlily evans bumps into james potter of all people in a muggle supermarket
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Jily - Relationship, pre-James Potter/Lily Evans Potter - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	call me lily

Cokeworth was a shithole, in Lily Evans most humble opinion. The air was always thick with fumes from the nearby factories, the roads and pavements filled with potholes as deep as a well, and the alleyways that always had her heartbeat spiking as she quickly walked through them. But then again, it was her shithole, and she loved it with her whole heart. 

Growing up in Cokeworth, she’d been acutely aware that she had less than others. All the children in her muggle primary school had been her neighbours; they’d all experienced watching their parents go hungry so that they themselves could eat, the huddling around the fireplace for warmth in the winter when they couldn’t afford heating, the importance of making things last. It wasn’t until Lily had gone to Hogwarts that she realised the majority of her classmates lived in a whole other world.

Both James Potter and Sirius Black’s families were practically wizarding royalty, along with her best friend Marlene McKinnion’s. Nearly everybody had a family member high up in the ministry. Nearly everybody had a spare few galleons to spend in Hogsmeade on a stash of chocolate frogs and a butterbeer. 

During the holidays, Lily had a job at the supermarket in the nearest city stacking the shelves. It helped ease her guilt about the cost of her Hogwarts uniform and books if she was contributing towards it. Her dad worked at the local steel mill and her mum ran a hairdressers from their kitchen with the help of Petunia, A.K.A, not enough to stretch to the cost of Madam Malkin’s tailored uniforms that Hogwarts required.

And that was how Lily Evans came to be in a supermarket in Coventry on that fateful day.

It was only just gone 10:30am and Lily was having a bad day. First, her bus had almost broken down and she had narrowly avoided being late by sprinting through the car park, her co-worker had dropped a box filled to the brim with cans of soup of her foot making her eyes water in agony, a bag of flour had split all over her and now--

“Evans?”

She jolted, smashing her head into the shelf above. Really, all she was missing from her day was a concussion at this point, but she knew that voice, and that voice did not belong outside of Hogwarts, nevermind in a random supermarket in a shitty city no one wanted to be in.

“Shit, I didn’t mean to scare you I was just surpr- oh Merlin, you’re bleeding,”

Lily opened her eyes which she had closed after promptly smacking her head into the shelf and there he was. James fucking Potter, the most un-muggle-like wizard, in the most mundane muggle place.

“Hello? Earth to Evans? Should I go get someone? How many fingers am I holding up?” He asked, sticking three fingers in her face, an inch away from her nose.

“I’m fine,” She replied, batting his hand out of her face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“My mum loves muggle history and all that sort of shit so I guess you could say I’m on holiday. Though I just wander around.” He smiled, acting like there was absolutely nothing wrong with the current situation, when Lily could not put into words how many things there were wrong with the situation.

“A holiday. In Coventry.” Lily repeated.

“Yes, that’s what I just said. Merlin, Evans, you hit your head harder than I thought. Maybe I should go find your boss or-”

“No! I was just...surprised? No one wants to come here on holiday. It’s a shithole.”

“Well I highly doubt anywhere that has Lily Evans could be a shithole.”

At that moment, Lily’s manager came walking round the corner, his eyes widening when he saw Lily’s forehead, which was now smeared with a sizable amount of blood.

And that was how she found herself being escorted home by James fucking Potter. 

She took the window seat and James took the aisle seat and the rickety old bus sprang back into motion. There were only three other passengers, a woman and her toddler who were having a riveting conversation about trees, and an elderly woman who had given her and James a disapproving glare as they’d gotten on.

Lily hadn’t even noticed she’d spaced out until she felt James pressing a tissue into her hand. She gave him a quizzical look.

“For your forehead. It’s still bleeding,” He explained.

She nodded, but made no move to wipe her forehead. The situation was just so odd it felt like a fever dream. Her two polar opposite worlds were colliding. Here she was, on a muggle bus with James Potter, wearing her flour-covered uniform.

James gently took her hand that she still held the tissue with, and slowly raised it to her forehead, his hand guiding hers.

“It was about to drip into your eyes. Maybe we should go to a hospital.”

“No, I don’t need a hospital.” She said, finally re-finding her voice.

James nodded, looking skeptical.

“At least take my jacket. You’re shaking more than Peter when McGonagall yells at us.”

The situation had now upgraded from odd to extremely weird as she said yes. In her defence, the bus was missing a window, she was freezing.

Lily stood when the bus got to her stop, James following suit.

“I can find my way from here.” Lily said.

“I may be stupid, Evans, but I’m not an idiot. You were barely responding at all five minutes ago. And people say you’re the responsible one.” James joked.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

They stood for a minute.

“I don’t know where you live.” James said.

“Oh.” She replied.

Oh? God, maybe she was the idiot from the pair of them. What kind of reply was ‘oh’? 

She was intensely aware of her footsteps echoing off of the cobbles onto the mass of brick walls surrounding them and that James Potter was seeing exactly how she lived in all its glory. Out of herself and her sister, Petunia was always the one who had been more outwardly ashamed of their neighbourhood, constantly making comment after comment about how lovely her friend Karen’s house was, or how beautiful her friend Jennifer’s garden was, never inviting them round, always going to theirs. Lily, on the other hand, had stayed silent after seeing the looks on her poor parents faces after seeing the looks on her poor parents faces after Petunia made her remarks. But now that James was here, she understood her sister’s feelings a lot more. James quite literally lived in a manor. She’d heard Sirius and James laughing in the common room as they’d told Remus and Peter about how they’d covered the ballroom floor with water and washing up liquid to make a giant slip-and-slide. A ballroom. The closest she had to a ballroom was when one of the neighbours kids had kicked a football through their front window.

She hoped Sever- Snape. She hoped Snape didn’t look out of his window. He’d probably die from shock.

Her house was identical to all the others on the street, the same mass of soot-stained bricks, the same crumbling wooden door, the same ancient brass handle. However, when her and Petunia were younger, their mum had bought them a shiny new door number.

“So you’ll always know where home is.” She had said, pointing to the sign. It was a beautiful ceramic white with the number 68 in a bold black, but right next to it was a painting of two flowers. A petunia, and a lily.

The sign had seen better days. It was now a dirty white, covered in scrapes, and had a crack running through the middle that her dad had fixed a few years ago when it had fallen and smashed into two halves. But Lily always looked for it.

She knocked. She didn’t have a key. As children she and Petunia had shared one, with Petunia being in charge of it as the older sister, and the key had changed to Petunia and Lily’s key to Just petunia’s key when she had gone to Hogwarts. 

The door flew open to reveal her mother, who immediately looked concerned at seeing her daughter home from work halfway through her shift, bleeding from the head, and escorted by a boy. Like Petunia, her mother had blonde hair, but Lily had her bright green eyes. Unfortunately, she’d also inherited her father’s red hair, making her look like christmas personified.

“Hi, Mrs Evans. I’m James Potter, I go to school with Lily. She hit her head badly at work so I made sure she got home okay.” James said, using his ‘oh shit McGonagall’s caught us’ voice.

Lily nodded to confirm his story, moving the tissue from her head to show her mother that she was, in fact, bleeding.

Her mum quickly ushered them both into the kitchen, pulling out her tupperware box of medical supplies and putting the kettle on.

“Thank you for bringing her home, dear, she seems a bit dazed.” Her mother said as she dabbed at the cut with rubbing alcohol.

“You don’t need to thank me, Mrs Evans.” She heard James say back.

“Oh call me Hazel, dear,” Her mother smiled.

Lily blinked. “I’m not dazed.”

“Of course.” Hazel Evans nodded.

An hour later, she, her mother, and James Potter were sitting around their tiny wooden dining table having a cup of tea, and she was enjoying it. Lily Evans was actually actively enjoying a conversation with the arrogant toe-rag known as James Potter. Although, she supposed, he wasn’t exactly a bullying toe-rag anymore. She didn’t know what had happened, apparently no one actually knew as Marlene had used her student spy network she had running and come back empty handed, but whatever had happened between the Marauders had changed them all. First, none of them had spoken to Sirius for several weeks. Then she’d seen James and Sirius having a furiously whispered fight in the corner of the common room. Finally, the whole of Gryffindor had heard the shouting match coming from the Marauders dorm room, although no words could be made out. She suspected Remus had had the intelligence to cast a muffling charm. Now, although the Marauders were reunited New James was mature and surprisingly pleasant to be around.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Hazel asked, offering both James and Lily a biscuit from the tin, which they both took.

“No my parents were really old when they had me so no siblings but they took my best friend, Sirius, in last year so they see him as like a second son.” James explained, politely taking a bite of his biscuit after he spoke.

“Your parents sound lovely.” Hazel smiled.

They continued talking for a while until the conversation naturally came to a lull.

“Thank you for having me, Mrs Evans, but I’ll have to get back now. It was great to meet you.” James said with a smile.

“It was lovely to meet you too, James. Thank you for bringing Lily home.” Hazel replied, taking James and Lily’s empty mugs to the sink to be washed later.

“I’ll show him out,” Lily announced, surprising herself.

James’ eyes widened slightly.

“Thank you. For everything.” She said, twisting the key in the lock to open the door for her classmate.

“Don’t worry about it, Evans.” James replied, stepping onto the murky street.

“Lily. Call me Lily.” She blurted out.

“Call me James,” He smiled back, before walking down the street towards the bus stop.

It wasn’t until she ran up to her room to hide her blushing cheeks that she realised that she was still wearing his jacket.

**Author's Note:**

> just for fun :)


End file.
